Top Five ACTUAL National Emergencies

As the man who is, to our everlasting shame, president of the United States makes a mockery of the concept, I thought I’d start a discussion of actual national emergencies from our history.

It’s not that easy. I’m sure I’m forgetting something big, but just to get the ball rolling, here’s my quick-and-dirty list of Top Five Actual National Emergencies:

Civil War — I could have said Secession or the Dred Scott decision or the Nullification Crisis, but I’m just wrapping it all together under one heading.

Cuban Missile Crisis — An alternative might be “Berlin Wall Crisis,” but this seems to be the one when a nuclear exchange seemed most likely.

World War II — Not sure whether this should make the short list because the United States’ existence wasn’t threatened the way Britain’s and France’s and so many other countries’ were. But for those living through it, things looked pretty dark in December 1941. In terms of response to a crisis, the nation rose to this one as it did in the 1860s.

Spanish Flu Pandemic — Exactly a century ago, it killed more people than there were military deaths in both World War I and II. Of course, it was worldwide, and not just national, but I included it anyway.

Stock Market Crash, 1929 — I know it was just about money and all, but it was a biggie.

Honorable mention:

Burning of Washington, 1814 — Kind of a low point — I mean, the president fled and the Brits burned the White House — but I went back and forth as to whether it should make the list.

9/11, 2001 — We’re still kind of reeling from this one.

Watergate — The Constitution withstood a test, and we passed with flying colors. But Americans’ trust in their government has continued to wither.

8 thoughts on “Top Five ACTUAL National Emergencies”

TBH, it has too much of a whiff of biological determinism, and biological determinism is a notion that undermines far too much in a society that is moving beyond concepts like Freedom and Equality towards a more just society of Equity and Liberation.

That combined with economic inequality and the cultural acceptance of non-Eros based love (sapiosexuality, asexuality, etc.), means that it might be best for concepts like Eros to go underground for a few generations. It’s better to have a marriage based on mutual socioeconomic struggle that smashes an unfair system, than something based on chemical attraction.

Like Byron said, “For the sword outwears its sheath, and the soul wears out the breast, and the heart must pause to breathe, and love itself have rest.”